Inclusive Mathematics Teaching: understanding and developing school and classroom strategies for raising attainment

This project explored the ongoing challenge of enabling all students to reach their full potential in mathematics in Norway. Its major focus was on how municipalities, schools and teachers organise mathematics teaching for inclusion given the emphasis in the Norwegian curriculum on the provision of adapted education which meets the needs of every child regardless of background or prior attainment. This presents a challenge for schools and teachers in the context of concerns about Norway’s performance in international tests such as PISA and a related increase in, and focus on, testing. Increased testing has led to a growing advocacy and use of grouping by attainment in Norway, raising questions about inclusion given the wide range of international evidence which is critical of this practice. Understanding grouping practices in Norway was therefore a central aim of the project, since teaching in mixed attainment classes is not only a historical norm but is also enshrined in law whereby students should ‘not normally’ be grouped according to ability, ethnicity or gender. Running from January 2019 to June 2024, the main project tasks involved: * Surveying schools across Norway to gather data on how they organise education in mathematics; * Interviewing municipality leaders about how teaching is organised in their municipality with particular reference to adapted education and inclusion; * Interviewing school leaders and teachers about mathematics teaching and how they address adapted education and inclusion; * Observation of teachers’ practice in primary and secondary classrooms and the nature of classroom organisation with respect to adapted education; * Gathering data on student perspectives on their mathematics classroom experiences; * Developing and evaluating an intervention based on approaches influenced by Realistic Mathematics Education (developing teacher noticing, building on students' informal strategies), known for its positive impact on attainment and engagement across all ages and abilities. A major finding of the project noted the impact of new trends towards making teachers responsible for students’ results and the move towards competition between schools. Many teachers, even experienced ones, reported difficulties in delivering adapted education and uncertainty about how they should teach for inclusion. Attainment grouping was often seen as a commonsense or even inevitable solution to the twin challenges of providing adapted education while delivering on test performance. This was the case even though many teachers were aware of, and worried about, its problematic nature, particularly with respect to student well-being. Grouping practices in our sample showed a great deal of variation, ranging from the more internationally recognised practice of splitting classes into attainment groups for the majority of mathematics lessons, to the provision of nurture or special interest groups which students could choose to join. At municipal level, we found that school owners encouraged schools and teachers to join development projects aiming to strengthen teachers' pedagogical competence, assuming that such initiatives would impact on inclusion. Similarly, although school leaders were keen to say that they were developing general strategies for inclusion, it was treated primarily as a practical issue for teachers. While the benefits of teacher autonomy featured in our findings, we noted the lack of discussion at school level about how to deal with the challenge of teaching in heterogeneous classes or the value conflicts that arise around the use of attainment grouping as a means of ensuring that all students benefit from their mathematics lessons. The importance of discussion was further highlighted in our analysis of teacher learning in the Realistic Mathematics Education-inspired intervention. Direct experience of inquiry-based teaching and working together to analyse student work challenged teachers’ preconceptions of the nature of mathematics and student ability and enabled them to develop new inclusive goals in pedagogical practice. Project outcomes also highlighted the impact of policy changes in professional development funding and structuring which potentially undermine opportunities for fostering teachers’ professional judgement and the development of equitable mathematics teaching practices. Teachers need space and support from school management to explore these issues. However, our work on the public face of schooling suggests that teachers' perspectives on the values and challenges of inclusive education are marginalised, and a growing emphasis on ‘best practice’ can lead to a ‘tick-box’ approach to teaching which undermines professional judgment. Expert teachers found it increasingly difficult to sustain their roles in schools, not least because recent phasing out of certain professional development programmes signals that teacher development is not a priority.

A major finding of the project was that attainment grouping was often seen as a commonsense or even inevitable solution to the twin challenges of providing adapted education while delivering on test performance. This was the case even though many teachers were aware of its problematic nature, particularly with respect to student well-being. Some teachers and schools held a strong mixed attainment view but reported major difficulties in delivering adapted education. Even experienced teachers were unsure about how they should teach for inclusion. At municipal level, we found that school owners were supportive of the idea of inclusion but tended to focus on organizational aspects such as class size. They encouraged schools and teachers to join development projects aiming to strengthen teachers' pedagogical competence, assuming that such initiatives would impact on inclusion even though few actually dealt specifically with inclusive practices. This shifted the focus to teachers' competence while leaving the details of inclusion in the classroom to teachers. Similarly, although school leaders were also keen to say that they were developing general strategies for inclusion, it was treated primarily as a practical issue for teachers. At the same time, we found that expert teachers found it increasingly difficult to sustain their roles in schools because they are not appropriately deployed or supported. These findings underline the lack of discussion at school level about how to deal with the challenge of teaching in heterogeneous classes or the value conflicts that arise around the use of attainment grouping as a means of ensuring that all students benefit from their mathematics lessons. They also highlight the potential impact of policy changes in professional development funding and structuring on the availability of opportunities for fostering teachers’ professional judgement and the development of equitable mathematics teaching practices. A key outcome of this project is that teachers need space and support from school management to explore how to achieve inclusive mathematics teaching. However, our work on the public face of schooling suggests that teachers' perspectives on the values and challenges of inclusive education are marginalised, and a growing emphasis on ‘best practice’ can lead to a ‘tick-box’ approach to teaching which undermines professional judgment. These results have major significance for current education policy in Norway. The idea of attainment grouping as a means of raising performance levels is gaining political traction, while professional development and the form it should take is under scrutiny with a move away from training expert teachers as pedagogic development leads in schools. This project has potential to impact on these issues on the basis of a research base which is not only unique in Norway but is also tuned in to its history and educational culture.

The project addresses the need to strengthen mathematics teaching in Norway in the context of international test performance and national patterns of attainment that suggest that many students do not reach their full potential, despite various initiatives in adapted education which aim to meet individual learners’ needs. In addition, the new curriculum emphasis on problem solving and reasoning skills demands deeper conceptual understanding, requiring pedagogic approaches which challenge and include all learners. Organised in 5 work packages, the project seeks to understand current school- and classroom-level practice in mathematics education. A national-level mapping will match learning environments, school-level data, individual register data and student characteristics to assess the impact of different strategies of adapted education on outcomes for different groups of students. A sample of 20 municipalities will be investigated further to understand the interface between governance and practice, based on data at municipal and school level to understand decision-making and implementation of strategies for adapted education. We will also survey teachers and students in a sub-set of 8 schools regarding their experience of mathematics teaching strategies and the learning environment in general. Teachers in this same sub-set of schools will be recruited for in-depth study focusing on classroom practice in relation to strategies for adapted education. Analysis of practice and impact in these schools will contribute to collaborative work with schools and teachers to develop, implement and evaluate an innovative programme for inclusive mathematics teaching based on Realistic Mathematics Education, known for its positive impact on attainment and engagement across the range of ages and abilities.